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Wednesday, March 7, 2012

When new worlds are created, an integer is incremented. When this integer overflows, the kernel panics and fails with a purple diagnostic screen. In ESXi, new worlds are created for all processes because there is no service console operating system. Therefore, this number increments much faster in ESXi than ESX. In ESXi, this issue occurs when the system has been running for a very long time (over a year) without a reboot and has been actively creating processes. In ESX classic, it is almost impossible to hit this threshold.
To workaround this issue, reboot the host. Rebooting the host restarts the counter and eliminates the risk of any failure.

To avoid a reboot, you can check to determine if your system is at risk.

To determine if your system is at risk, run this script in the ESXi command line:highWID=$(vsish -e ls world | sed 's!/$!!' | sort -n | tail -n 1)
let microFull=highWID/7400
echo ${microFull}

If this script returns a value close to 100,000, it is recommended to schedule a reboot.